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The Golan Heights: 5 Facts
by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
A short guide to the history and strategic value of the Golan
Heights.
The Golan Heights are Israel’s buffer against its
northern neighbor Syria.
In Israeli hands since 1967, the Golan Heights are
back in the news today, after President Trump signed a proclamation recognizing
Israel’s sovereignty.
Here are five facts about the Golan Heights to
provide some background at this historic moment.
Historical
Ties
The Golan is the site of some of the Torah’s most
vivid histories.
When Jewish tribes first settled in the land of
Israel, the tribes of Gad and Reuben asked Moses for permission to settle east
of the Jordan River.
Moses agreed and also sent half of the tribe of
Manasseh who settled in “Golan in the (region called) the Bashan” in the
modern-day Golan Heights (Deuteronomy
4:43).
Jews built a busy and pious community there, but the
area was under constant attack from the Aramean kingdom to the region’s north.
The Book of Kings describes the monumental battle in
the 9th Century BCE when the combined forces of the Jewish tribes of Judah and
Israel defeated the Aramean armies in the Golan: “It happened...that (King)
Ben-Hadad counted Aram, and he went up to Aphek to wage war against Israel… the
battle was joined, and the Children of Israel struck down Aram – a hundred
thousand foot soldiers in one day” (I Kings 20:26-29).
 |
| Remains of a Byzantine bathhouse, in Kursi National Park, Golan Heights |
Judah Maccabee led Jewish troops against the Greeks
in the area, and his grand-nephew, the Jewish King Alexander Jannai, who ruled
from 103-76 BCE, annexed the Golan region, adding it to his territory.
When the Roman Empire crushed the Jewish kingdom of
Judah, the Golan was one of the very last areas to fall, only defeated in the
year 67 CE.
While Jewish autonomy ended, Jewish life in the Golan
continued to flourish.
Archeologists have uncovered the remains of 34
ancient synagogues in the area, dating from the end of the Judean kingdom in 70
CE.
Throughout the Roman period, Jewish life in the Golan
flourished, with synagogues and centers of learning sustaining a literate,
pious Jewish community.
That came to end in the 7th Century when Islamic
tribes crushed the Jewish communities in the territory.
The last battle against the Islamic conquest, fought
in the Yarmouk Valley in the year 636, took place in the Golan Heights.
After that, Jews were driven out of the area for
centuries.
Zionist
Farmers in the Golan
Jewish life briefly returned to the Golan in 1891
when Jewish pioneers began to purchase and farm land in the region.
Baron Edmond de Rothschild bought 18,000 acres in the
area of Ramat Magshimim, in the Golan.
Jews built five small farms in the Golan area’s
verdant hills.
The Jewish pioneers’ farming experiment came to an
end in 1898 when local Turkish authorities evicted the Jews and seized their
land.
At the end of World War I, Britain took control of
the area; in 1923 they gave the Golan to France, along with the territories of
present-day Syria and Lebanon.
In 1947, Syria forced Jews out of the Golan Heights,
and used the area to shell Israeli towns and farms that were in the sights of
the towering hills of the Golan instead.
Small
Area
The Golan Heights are so often in the news that one
might be forgiven for thinking the area is a large one, full of people.
In fact, the area of the Golan Heights that’s held by
Israel is only about 1,200 square km., or about 500 square miles.
About 40,000 people live in the Golan; most of these
residents are members of the Druze and Alawite minorities who inhabit several
villages and small towns in the hills.
In addition, there are 32 Jewish towns and Jewish
farming communities across the Golan.
Mount Hermon in the north of the Golan is about 2,800
meters, or 9,300 feet tall, and is a popular skiing destination.
A few miles south, the hills along the Yarmuk River,
which flows through the southern part of the Golan, are about 400 meters, or
1,300 feet tall.
It’s a beautiful region, and several Israeli national
parks and protected areas now dot the area.
Between 1948, when the state of Israel was
established, and 1967, when Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria,
Syrian artillery batteries regularly shelled the entire region of northern
Israel.
They also allowed Fatah, the PLO’s political arm, to
carry out attacks from the region.
Haifa is only about 60 miles from the Golan Heights,
and the Golan affords an excellent view of the Hula Valley in Israel’s north,
which is Israel’s most fertile agricultural region.
For years, Israeli children were forced to sleep in
bomb shelters.
Many roads in Israel’s north could only be driven
along after mine-detection trucks cleared the streets.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir recalled the
misery that Syrians created for Israelis in the crosshairs of the Golan Heights.
“The Syrians seemed bent on an escalation of the
conflict; they kept up an endless bombardment of the Israeli settlements below
the Golan Heights, and Israeli fishermen and farmers faced what was sometimes
virtually daily attacks by snipers. I used to visit those settlements
occasionally and watch the settlers go about their work as though there was
nothing at all unusual in ploughing with a military escort or putting children
to sleep – every single night – in underground air-raid shelters” (quoted in My
Life by Golda Meir).
Recognizing that Syria was using the Golan Heights to
attack Israel, the UN sent troops to police the border between Israel and
Syria.
In 1966, Israel appealed to this body, the UN Mixed
Armistice Commission, asking them to stop Syria from allowing PLO troops to
bomb Israel from the Golan.
The UN refused to condemn Syria, though it did
condemn Israel when Israeli troops dared fire upon Syrian positions in the
Golan.
The
Six Day War
After years of provocation, Israel gained the Golan
Heights during the Six Day War of 1967.
Fighting started on June 5, 1967, when Israel
launched a preemptive strike on Egypt.
Syria used the Golan Heights to shell villages and
farms in the Hula Valley, and also sent planes to bomb Haifa.
On June 9, Israel engaged Syrian fighters in the
Golan and captured the area with seemingly miraculous speed, by the afternoon
of June 10.
Archeologists soon found reminders of the area’s
historic ties to Israel: coins dating from the 2nd Century CE inscribed with
the words “For the Redemption of Jerusalem”.
Syria tried to regain the Golan six years later, in
1973, when they, along with Egypt, and supported by nine other Arab nations,
staged a surprise attack on Israel on
Yom Kippur.
They were unsuccessful and Syria later signed a
disengagement agreement as part of their armistice with Israel that left the
Golan in Israel’s hands.
UN troops were stationed at the border of the now
Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria, though Israel never used the Golan
Heights to shell Syrian territory the way Syria used the commanding hills to
terrorize Israel.
In 1981, Israel effectively annexed the Golan
Heights, reflecting the key security importance of the area.
Syrian continues to demand its return.
In 1999, during peace talks with Yasser Arafat that
many Israelis thought might lead to a permanent peace with the PLO, Syria
disclosed its position: they would only agree to peace with Israel if Israel
returned the entire Golan Heights.
They wanted to be able to reestablish military
positions on the hills, and also control the freshwater sources of the area.
Given their experience with Syrian aggression in the
area, Israelis refused to even consider this outrageous demand.
Humanitarian
Aid in the Golan
With the humanitarian disaster of Syria’s brutal
civil war now in its eighth year, Israelis have used the Golan region to
provide life-saving humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees.
In June 2016, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) launched
Operation Good Neighbors, which coordinates massive amount of medical and
material aid in the Golan area.
Under
Operation Good Neighbors, Israel has distributed over 1,500 tons of food, over
250 tons of clothes, about a million liters of fuel, dozens of generators, and
about 25,000 containers of medical equipment and medicine.
In
one week in 2018 alone, the IDF’s Bashan Brigade carried out six risky
operations in the Golan Heights, delivering hundreds of tons of aid, including
clothing and children’s toys, to civilians in Syria.
When
fighting from Syria’s civil war neared the Golan in July 2018, the Israeli
Golan Regional Council launched a major drive to collect items to distribute to
Syrian refugees in a buffer zone just outside Israeli control.
“We would love any families in the Golan to make
sealed bags for a Syrian child with toys and... coloring pages, crayons and
sweets... to provide them with a moment of sweet and sweet joy” the council asked.
“These are our neighbors and we see this as a mitzvah
to help them in times of trouble”
explained Council head Eli Malka.
Within
hours, thousands of donations had poured in.
The
brutal fighting continues to rage near to the Golan Heights, a constant
reminder of how crucial it is that Israel control the historic and
strategically critical area of the Golan.
Dr. Yvette Alt Miller. Yvette
Alt Miller earned her B.A. at Harvard University. She completed a Postgraduate
Diploma in Jewish Studies at Oxford University, and has a Ph.D. In
International Relations from the London School of Economics. She lives with her
family in Chicago, and has lectured internationally on Jewish topics. Her
book Angels at the table: a Practical Guide to Celebrating Shabbat takes
readers through the rituals of Shabbat and more, explaining the full beautiful
spectrum of Jewish traditions with warmth and humor. It has been praised as
"life-changing", a modern classic, and used in classes and discussion
groups around the world.https://www.aish.com/jl/li/ji/The-Golan-Heights-5-Facts.html?s=ras
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